Self Defense Class

I had an emotionally intense and physically draining weekend. I took an adrenal response based self defense class this weekend. I have always had the attitude of I won’t go down without a fight, but realize most attackers would be stronger than me and would probably do me more harm than I would them. Therefore I loved the idea of gaining the skills to go along with the attitude.

The whole idea behind adrenal based training is to scare and intimidate you to the point that your body does an adrenal dump giving you the focus, strength and determination to effectively fight for your life.

There are two reasons for this, one is that when you learn something new under that kind of stress it imprints into your memory deeper (both in the conscious and subconscious mind) and is easier to recall the next time your body does an adrenal dump, and second is that when you are faced with a life and death fight your conscious mind is too slow to make the decisions needed to save yourself so you need to rely on the subconscious mind.

I can’t go into a lot of detail, it is just too graphic for this blog and revealing too much would make it less effective for anyone who takes the class in the future, but I will say that the instructor made it very clear that we would be in distress all day. Once class started the doors were locked and we were not allowed to leave. Why lock the doors? Because they had “bad guys” that were so vile and allowed to say, and do whatever they needed to in order to convince you they were going to do every single nasty horrible thing possible to you. And it was relentless, the bad guys repeatedly were allowed to yell at us, whisper in our ears (that was the worst as they were the most graphic when they were able to be close and touching you), make fun of us if we cried, or let us know that if we were “too” strong they would break us. It was relentless mental and emotional battery all day.

We were taught a handful of basic, yet very effective, techniques to defend ourselves and had 5 fights/scenarios that were full on attacks/fights allowing us to use what we had learned. The goal is 4 seconds and the guy is on his back, because the average attack on the street last 4 seconds. If you can’t defend yourself in 4 seconds it is over for you. By the 3rd fight I was at the 4 second mark every time.

I learned that while the bad guys terrified me I was more angry than scared. I’m not a crier; I was the one who looked each attacker right in the eyes to let him know I was going to kill him. It made me a target, they repeatedly let me know they would break me, but they didn’t. I took a deep breath before each fight to focus and do what needed to be done, and it worked. The whole point of the training is that you may be a mess inside, but that won’t stop you from doing what needs to be done, the subconscious brain knows exactly what to do and the body follows…the beautiful thing about adrenaline!

It has taken a toll though; I have been exhausted, dealing with headaches and am really sensitive to certain language/jokes right now. I’m sure I will be back to normal in a few days. Even though I felt emotionally wrecked after the class I also felt such a sense of accomplishment and am really proud of what I accomplished. I feel strong and able to defend myself and my family if needed. The distress I went through was totally worth it for the pay off!